In the Edge

[kadoxu]

Quick update...
The fishies still need to get used to me. They all hide behind the plants when I come around, so no point of taking a picture yesterday. This morning, most of them were out when I came to check on them, so I should be able to get a decent pic soon.
They already recovered some coloration, which is nice, no deaths so far, also nice, and the Endler does seem a bit more relaxed with them in the tank, so everything is going well so far.

 

[kadoxu]

Fishies are getting a bit more comfortable now. The wood is still leaching tannins, ence the water cloudiness, but these guys probably love it. Less than half of them captured in the pic though.

 

[kadoxu]

1 week!

Planted the Staurogyne repens and the Hydrocotyle tripartita today, but forgot to take a picture afterwards...

The fishies are slowly coming out... lost 1 of them, which doesn't surprise me after getting them delivered very very pale.

The surprise is coming to life

 

[kadoxu]

I'm very proud to say that this tank is now featured at the cover photo of the Fluval Edge Enthusiasts facebook group, which counts more than 1500 members!

 

[kadoxu]

Today's pics

 

[kadoxu]

Week 4

 

[kadoxu]

Week 5

Not much has changed... I'm slowly increasing the amount of ferts, I'm currently at 30% EI dosing.
Anubias barteri is loving this tank, it has grown almost a new leaf every week since I put it there. Also had to trim a bit of the Red cambomba and Hydrocotyle tripartita, as they are growing fast towards the light.

I have to be honest, I was expecting a lot of the plants to melt and die, but everything seems to be doing quite well. Even the Monte Carlo I put in the tank just to test my luck isn't melting! It has been a very cheap, very low maintenance, and very satisfying tank to keep. The only bad thing about it is that there are way too many hiding spots and the only critters I see regularly are snails!

I do have to install an auto doser, as I keep forgetting to dose in the morning...

Just before lights out:

 

[kadoxu]

A decent quality vid

 

[kadoxu]

Week 7 - Trimming & water change day!

 

[leetaylor]

looks very lush!

 

[kadoxu]

looks very lush!

Thanks.

This is now almost 2 months old and I have to say all the plants are doing way better than I expected... I was expecting to loose quite a few, since it's a low tech tank and some plants I didn't even knew what they were, but the main thing that's happening is the red plants are losing the red color due to the lack of light intensity. Other than that I'm quite happy with it.

And with snails and shrimp in the tank it's pretty much low maintenance as well. I added an auto doser last week, because I kept forgetting to add fertilizers, so now all I have to do is feed the fish and do a water change once a week... I don't even need to clean the glass,as the snails take care of it for me.

 

[kadoxu]

Something flowering in the Edge!

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

I guess you have aponogeton. Have no idea which species though.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I guess you have aponogeton. Have no idea which species though

It is definitely an Aponogeton, the African (including Madagascar) species have more than one flower spike on each scape (the Asian species just have one flower head per scape), but if the floating leaf belong to the flowering plant? I don't know of any African species with floating leaves.

A hybrid between A. natans and A.crispus? Aponogeton crispus is a frequent flowerer and white, and A. natans has floating leaves

@Mick.Dk is your best bet for a <"definitive ID">.

cheers Darrel

 

[zozo]

If that's a Aponogeton robinsonii (vietnam, loas, thailand etc.) than i'm realy jealous.. The leafshape is simmular.. There are 2 var. of it, the floating and the non floating. Both are rather rare in the trade, usualy the floating version goes around. I got it and i'm trying to get it to go in my tank for a year now.. Can't get it realy to work, it doesn't die it doesn't grow it stays tiny.. So i also never got it to flower.. But i know it has a split flower..

I can't get my head around it why this plant wont grow in my tank.. (yet)

 

[kadoxu]

I guess you have aponogeton. Have no idea which species though.

I didn't even know that!

Hi all, It is definitely an Aponogeton, the African (including Madagascar) species have more than one flower spike on each scape (the Asian species just have one flower head per scape), but if the floating leaf belong to the flowering plant? I don't know of any African species with floating leaves.

A hybrid between A. natans and A.crispus? Aponogeton crispus is a frequent flowerer and white, and A. natans has floating leaves

@Mick.Dk is your best bet for a <"definitive ID">.

If that's a Aponogeton robinsonii (vietnam, loas, thailand etc.) than i'm realy jealous.. The leafshape is simmular.. There are 2 var. of it, the floating and the non floating. Both are rather rare in the trade, usualy the floating version goes around. I got it and i'm trying to get it to go in my tank for a year now.. Can't get it realy to work, it doesn't die it doesn't grow it stays tiny.. So i also never got it to flower.. But i know it has a split flower..

I can't get my head around it why this plant wont grow in my tank.. (yet)

Yes, I believe the floating leaf to be the same plant, but can't really confirm, since it's in the middle of a lot of other plants. After going to my Ebay's Purchase History, I believe this was sold to me in a bulb pack of 5 Aponogeton Natans, and 2 Nymphs.

 

[zozo]

As far as i know the true A. Natans has different submersed leaf form than floating.

It als can go dormant, reportedly more often than not. It is not realy known why if it doesn"t, why it doesn't. Commonly it is advised to take the A.natans out of the tank and keep it in the dormacy periode in moist soil till it sprouts again. But keep it submersed and patiently wait can work too. This inconsitant behaivor seems to be the reason why most in the trade are cultivar crossbreeds with among others A. Crispus and A. undulatus. If you got them from Asia via ebay you probably have the true natans. If it is from a European lfs it likely is a crossbreed. Ive looked a long time for the A.Natans only could find it in asia, ordered it 2 x but both times it didn't survive the trip..

What caught my eye was the submersed leaf in front of the heater.. That looks very simmular to a A. Robinsonii leaf. But i'm absolutely not familiar with the looks of the cultivars.

 

[kadoxu]

As far as i know the true A. Natans has different submersed leaf form than floating.

It als can go dormant, reportedly more often than not. It is not realy known why if it doesn"t, why it doesn't. Commonly it is advised to take the A.natans out of the tank and keep it in the dormacy periode in moist soil till it sprouts again. But keep it submersed and patiently wait can work too. This inconsitant behaivor seems to be the reason why most in the trade are cultivar crossbreeds with among others A. Crispus and A. undulatus. If you got them from Asia via ebay you probably have the true natans. If it is from a European lfs it likely is a crossbreed. Ive looked a long time for the A.Natans only could find it in asia, ordered it 2 x but both times it didn't survive the trip..

What caught my eye was the submersed leaf in front of the heater.. That looks very simmular to a A. Robinsonii leaf. But i'm absolutely not familiar with the looks of the cultivars.

Not sure really... I got it from an Ebay store I sometimes buy plants from, they seem to be UK based, so not sure where they get their plants from. These are the pics that they have of the A. Natans

 

[kadoxu]

Quick small update.

It seems that the melting I was expecting about a month ago is starting to happen, mostly on the left side of the tank, where higher light demanding plants are.

I was expecting this to have happened a long time ago due to the lack of flow, light and CO2 I knew this tank would have. The Anubias, Java ferns, and Crypts were pretty much the only plants I was expecting to do great in this tank, but a lot of the others are as well, so I'm still very happy with the results I'm having so far, specially when considering I spent less than £250 setting everything up (including a new doser)!

There are still a lot of plant types doing fine, so I'll let the melt happen and let the snails and shrimp have a feast!

 

[cookie.dou]

Really like how everything looks so far. I haven't really seen a planted edge that's really caught my eye but this is looking quite full. Looking forward to seeing what it looks like after a few more months of maturation.